Immortal Light: Wide Awake

by John D. Sperry

  Lucy obeyed.

  “Now, bond with the jacket like you would your sword.”

  Lucy pushed her light into the jacket. She felt it encompass her entire torso and the jacket, though easily flexible, felt more rigid.

  Jack placed the knife on the sleeve that Lucy had held up and he started sawing at it like he was trying to cut off her arm. After a dozen or so strokes, he removed the knife and the jacket was completely unharmed.

  “That’s amazing!” Lucy exclaimed, eyes wide.

  “Yeah, I thought you’d like that. That’s why we wear them.”

  Lucy looked around the room at her new family and felt so thankful that she had them and wished there were some way she could ever give them anything that even compared to what they had given her: something to live for.

  She looked into each of their eyes. Kat just smiled warmly and lovingly at her. Peter nodded in approval, holding a glass of ginger ale. Jack beamed at his handy work, and Lucy could tell he was ecstatic that she loved it. Benjamin radiated joy and affection for the only girl he had ever loved.

  As the night grew later, Kat fell asleep on one of the couches, Peter went to bed, and Jack sat in the chair nearest Kat and hummed a soft Christmas carol.

  Benjamin held Lucy in his arms, their backs against the couch that faced the fireplace near the front door. There was such a peace to the scene that Lucy felt she never wanted to leave his side, but she had questions that remained unanswered. There hadn’t been time in the week that had passed after their return from California to ask them; but, sitting in the light of the fire, she felt the urgency to ask.

  “Benjamin,” she started. “Why did you stab me in your haven that time?” It was a question that had plagued her for weeks, but with all that had happened since Homecoming, she never had the opportunity to ask again.

  Benjamin didn’t say anything at first. Lucy could feel his chest rise and fall as he breathed. She could tell he was ready when he stopped breathing and opened his mouth.

  “It’s because you brought something with you that I had to get out.”

  Lucy scrunched her eyebrows together. “What do you mean, I brought something?”

  “What I saw was a dark, smoky figure. I’d never seen anything like it before and it scared me. It was in my haven and all I knew was that I had to get it out.” He took a breath. “The only way to expel someone from your haven is to ask them to leave or kill them; break the bond by simulating death. Unfortunately, it had grabbed you, so the only way to get rid of it was to get rid of you, too.”

  Lucy nodded as she began to understand. She remembered the reaper she had brought to her haven.

  “It was a reaper that I brought with me, then.” She wasn’t asking.

  She had seen it before, a dark smoky figure in her haven, but she had deliberately summoned it that time. When she was in Benjamin’s haven, she didn’t even know what a reaper was. She was confused as to how one would have gotten to Benjamin’s haven.

  Seemingly reading her mind, Benjamin continued: “All I know is that you brought it with you. That’s not an accident I would have made.”

  “But I didn’t know any of this. I would have to be touching one to bring it with me. I was at school. It’s not like there were reapers sitting next to me. I mean, you were in the room.”

  Benjamin chuckled. “No, that’s for sure.”

  “But, the only other way is …” It hit her as she spoke, and her heart sank into her gut. “It was Kenny.”

  Benjamin looked curiously at her.

  “I was thinking about him right before I went to your haven,” Lucy continued. “I brought him with me and he was trying to get me away.”

  Lucy felt her throat swell. “He’s dead because of me. He tried to save me.”

  Benjamin squeezed Lucy tightly. “You can’t blame yourself for him. He made his choice before that ever happened. Suen and his army feed on the greedy. Kenny wanted something that Suen could provide, and in turn he became a reaper.”

  Lucy thought about the boxes of books Kenny would get mysteriously. He always handled the deliveries himself.

  “He traded his soul for power; power to be the boss. That’s probably why he hated Mrs. Breen so much. She wouldn’t let him be the boss.” Lucy shook her head and felt Benjamin’s light pour into her.

  The two sat quietly as Lucy found peace with what happened to Kenny and as other questions bubbled to the surface, more important questions that dealt with the future and not with the past. There were things that Benjamin had never told her, and she had to know why.

  “Why did you never tell me of the prophecy?”

  Benjamin stared at the fire. “I really wanted to Lucy, but it was just never the right time.” He closed his eyes as if to pray for the right answer. “Peter and I felt that if we were to tell you all that you were designed to be, it would have scared you, or driven you away.” He shook his head. “We were wrong. You were strong enough all along.”

  “But Sukabra said that no matter what happened, the gods would always provide a guardian. I’m not the only one they’ve tried to extract.” Looking at Benjamin, she feared his response to the news of the other two guardians that Sukabra had killed.

  “We know you’re not the first. Peter saw the other two. They lived more than three hundred years apart, and as much as it hurt him, he knew he couldn’t do anything to save them. He found both of their bodies, and he buried them.”

  “Then why am I so different? Why am I the guardian this time?”

  Benjamin inhaled deeply. “To be honest, we don’t know why you were chosen. You’ve shown time and time again that you are ready for the challenges, but as for why … I guess it just happened that way.”

  Lucy looked into the fire, wishing for a real answer, when Benjamin continued. “Now, the reason you are different, that’s because you were prepared. You found us, and we prepared you. The others didn’t have that luxury, and they died not understanding their gift or even why they were being killed.”

  Lucy sat, understanding everything he was saying, but still not grasping one important detail. “But what does that mean? Why did we bond and no one else?”

  Benjamin breathed a soft laugh. “I don’t know, but Peter has a theory about that.”

  Lucy turned to face him, looking him in the eyes.

  “There’s a story in our culture that happened about a thousand years before I was born. It centers on the King’s special guard—an army, not a single guardian. Not only did they protect the king, but they protected the city.”

  “After the Queen’s death and the torturing extraction of her guardian—” Benjamin stopped when Lucy inhaled, all of the pieces finding their correct place in her mind.

  “After they died, the army destroyed the opposing city, killing every man, woman, and child. The soldiers felt so much remorse for their deed that they all took upon themselves the pain of immortality and vowed to wander the earth until they had found peace to replace the pain of killing so many innocent people.

  “In the absence of his army, the gods provided the King with the first-ever King’s Guardian. This man was granted powers above all others in the kingdom, save only the high priest and the King, himself.

  “A thousand years later, when I was only a child, the King was murdered by his own son and the guardian went looking for the killer. He never returned, but his body was found by a party of hunters only ten days later, lying face up in a state of supplication to the gods. His eyes were closed and besides the decomposition of his body, he was otherwise completely unharmed.”

  “What happened to him? Was he extracted?”

  “Well, when my father—he was the high priest and newly appointed steward of Zharem—got to him, he determined that his light had not been taken from him, but that the guardian had simply released it.”

  Lucy was puzzled. “So it was like he committed …” She gestured an unsure hand toward Benjamin.

  “Suicide?”

  “Yeah.”


  “Not exactly. See, when one of our people commits suicide, it leaves a remnant of the person’s light that is cold and sorrowful when a high priest evaluates the body. This guardian didn’t have that. My father described him as being “clean.” His light left him and was lost or taken, but it wasn’t ripped from him. Father believed that the light of the King’s guardian would return if a new king and queen were joined together as rulers of Zharem.”

  It was only a few seconds before Lucy put together Peter’s theory about Benjamin. Her eyes widened and she sat up and faced him.

  “You mean that Peter thinks you’re the …” She paused, just trying to comprehend the meaning of what she was about to say, but the concept was too great to even think.

  “Yes, but it’s only because of the bond I’ve made with you. You see, when we touched at the flagpole that first day we met, you bonded with me like we bond to the gold in our swords. Like my sword, you were the only thing that could get into my haven, and you could use my knowledge stored in the practice sword. Before long, I discovered that I was able to do the same things with you. That’s why, when we found your totem in the library, I was able to bond with it and literally see the last conversation you had before releasing it.”

  Lucy knew exactly what he was saying, but she was still troubled for proof.

  “How does that prove you’re the king’s guardian?”

  “Well, Peter believes that the two guardians would have to bond with each other in order to be united in the purpose of keeping the king and queen safe. He thinks we have just that kind of bond; like we were meant for each other.”

  Lucy thought about what he had said, and it seemed to make sense, but there was no real evidence. Lucy had received confirmation in the haven that she was the queen’s guardian, but Benjamin hadn’t mentioned anything like that happening to him.

  “What do you think? Are you the guardian?”

  “Other than being hopelessly in love with you,” he smiled and kissed Lucy on the forehead, “there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that what Peter even proposes is an option. We’ve never had a King’s Guardian and a Queen’s Guardian together. The king always had his army, and there is no prophecy of a king returning, only a queen. It’s only a theory, and based on how I feel, I wouldn’t call it a valid one.”

  Lucy could sense a hint of something in his voice, perhaps disappointment or sadness, but it didn’t last as he held her tighter.

  “I’d say one guardian in this relationship is enough, don’t you?”

  She could hear the smile in his voice and she relaxed back into his side.

  They sat staring into the fire. In spite of the terrible things that had happened to her, she felt safe in his arms. She knew that he would always take care of her, and she thought about their bond. She thought about everything he had said and about what he said in her haven to keep her from letting go, and she was suddenly curious.

  “Benjamin?” she whispered, wrapped in his arms, feeling the warmth of the fire on her skin.

  “Uh huh?” he responded in a relaxed stupor.

  “Why did you never tell me you loved me before, or even hint that I meant anything to you? I mean, you hung around the biggest … you know what I mean?”

  Lucy was getting upset, and when Benjamin was silent, she sat up and looked at him. His expression was one of serious thought and introspection, as though he were looking for the exact right words. Lucy waited for a response.

  “Well …” he began, “there are lots of reasons.”

  He looked into the fire as if searching for a place to start, and Lucy could see that it wasn’t as simple an answer as she had been expecting; but then, the answers never were.

  “When we met at the flagpole and bonded, I had no idea if you felt it, too. To be honest, it kind of scared me.”

  Lucy turned all the way around, crossing her legs and putting her back to the fire so as to give Benjamin her full attention.

  “Why did it scare you?”

  “Because I’d never felt that before. I’d never felt such a strong light connection with anyone and I really sort of had problems deciphering the other emotions I was feeling.”

  “What emotions were those?”

  The question was innocent enough, but all Lucy had to do was think about it for a moment and she would have realized they were the same emotions she had trouble deciphering.

  “I didn’t know what love felt like.” He looked a little embarrassed saying the words.

  Lucy couldn’t help but laugh, not at his difficulty with love, but that she had been experiencing the same thing.

  “Don’t worry, I can totally relate,” she said, blushing a little. “Then, when did you figure out that you loved me?”

  “It took a while. It was all I could do not to go down to the library. All I did all day was think about you, but then there was the bond we made. I was struggling between telling Peter that I met a girl that made a connection with me and running to the library and telling you I loved you. It was a trying time.”

  Lucy just smiled, knowing she had gone through something similar.

  “So, you can imagine when you showed up in my haven, I was quite shocked. I spent most of that night in the Haven Room trying to figure out how you got there and what it meant.”

  “How did you finally figure it out?”

  “Peter came down to the room looking for me. I told him about you and he told me to keep my distance.”

  Lucy contorted her face in confusion. “Why did he tell you to keep your distance?”

  “Well, we both thought you were the queen. He suspected that maybe you were the guardian, but in either case, he didn’t think it appropriate to get romantically involved with you. If you were the guardian or the queen, you had a job that I shouldn’t interfere with.”

  Lucy looked back on all of her interactions with him during the past few months and found that she was able to be objective in her thinking. She could understand his distance and why he felt it better for her to build her own haven and stop spending time with him, but it didn’t explain one thing.

  “So, why was it all of a sudden okay to be with me?”

  “Well, that’s the thing about Peter; he’s wise and can see things that we can’t. He can tell when reapers are around. He knew Sukabra was here and that’s how we knew it was time to tell you. But, Peter doesn’t know everything. So I thought: if I can’t be in love with her, then I’m at least going to be near her.”

  Lucy smiled inside as he spoke because the entire time she had been feeling the need to be near him, he was feeling the same thing. He simply had a more disciplined way of controlling it.

  There was silence for a moment until Benjamin asked a question of his own. “So, why didn’t you say anything to me out here?”

  Lucy laughed, threw her arms around him and held him close as she had craved doing for months. Leaning away from him, she looked into his eyes as he stared back, waiting for an answer.

  “Well,” she began, “there are a lot of reasons.”

  The two laughed and Lucy fell back into his arms and kissed him.

  As sleep and the warmth of the fire began to overtake them, there was a loud bang at the door. It startled all of the occupants in the room out of their various states of drowsiness. Benjamin and Jack looked at each other to make sure they had heard the same thing.

  After a few moments, the sound came again. It was loud and seemed to rattle the whole house. Jack hurtled himself over the couches and grabbed his jacket with its array of knives from the coat rack. Benjamin pulled his sword from its resting place by the fire and drew it. Motioning Lucy and Kat to the back of the room near the Christmas tree, he closed his fingers around the knob and slowly opened the door.

  Standing in the frame were two giant men—men that no one seemed to recognize immediately—and they were both holding swords. The one in front was clean shaven with dark hair. His skin was pale, as though it hadn’t seen the sun in years. His face wa
s harsh and chiseled, but it was his eyes that gave Lucy the sense that there was nothing to fear: their green irises practically glowed as he stared at Benjamin. The man behind was more rugged looking. He had a handlebar mustache that turned right-angles around his mouth and stopped at his chin. He wore a long, curly ponytail that draped over his shoulders, and a thin scar ran down his left cheek. It was obvious that both men were young, maybe in their early twenties, but there was a look to them that made them seem almost ancient. It was the look of experience.

  “My name is Klarr and this is my brother, Aux,” spoke the man in front. “We are captains of the king’s Silver Serpents.”

  Lucy looked inquisitively at Kat, who just shrugged her shoulders.

  The man continued, “Who are you, and why have we been summoned here?”

  Lucy did the same as the rest of the room and stared at the man who spoke in a deep Irish accent. Benjamin and Jack stood stone-faced; both had their weapons drawn. The moment was becoming tense as neither Jack nor Benjamin seemed to have had the slightest idea what the stranger was talking about. It was then that Lucy noticed their swords. The light that gleamed off of them wasn’t the rich amber color of gold that she had become used to. They shined the color of polished steel or chrome; their swords were silver. Lucy didn’t understand it, and Benjamin was just about to respond to Klarr when Peter’s unmistakable voice came from the darkness of the dining room and broke the silence.

  “We are friends, and you are here because I summoned you.”

  Chapter 23

  Footsteps clicked rapidly in the dark hallways of the top floor of a building in downtown Los Angeles. A man ran toward a tall, burgundy-stained wooden door at the end of the hall. As he arrived, he pressed a small, almost invisible, intercom button. An electronic crack came back, and a silken male voice came over the speaker.

  “Come in, Mr. Kaisen.”

  Mr. Kaisen walked into the room. He wore a black three-piece, pin-striped suit. He was of average height and very lean build. His hair was dark and neatly combed with a part on the right. Despite the youthful look of his face—a man no more than thirty years old—he carried himself with confidence.